


The Storm

by potentiality_26



Category: Their Finest (2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: She wasn’t sure she could explain it to Phyl.  She hardly understood it herself.  She lived with regular bombings- why did the flashes of lightning that she could occasionally make out around the gaps in the curtains trouble her so much?A storm and a revelation.





	The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Not Brit-picked.

“Quite a storm out there,” Phyl said.  Judging by the sodden coat she hung up beside her umbrella, this was a grave understatement.  She even had to unpin her hair and wring it out like a dishrag. 

It wasn’t as if Catrin didn’t know.  She had drawn the curtains tight, but she had still heard the thunder and rain all evening.

She wasn’t often home before Phyl.  Not too long after her landlady’s death, Phyl had found herself in need of new lodgings.  The landlady's husband had elected to head for the country to escape the bombings that had taken so much from him.  At around the same time, Catrin had just found her own place to live.  This was before Mr. Hilliard convinced her to come back, to write again, and Catrin had known she ought to go home to Wales.  What money she had wouldn’t last long; she would need to make more if she wanted to stay in London, and find someone to share the rent with besides.  It was strange, identifying herself as Mrs. Cole, husbandless, to her new landlady- a widow who had never been a wife, and whose husband wasn’t even dead. _Even_ \- that a joke tasted foul on her tongue despite never being uttered out loud.  Even at her angriest she had never wished Ellis dead.  There was too much death around already.  Still, she wondered why Phyl of all people stood for it, when as she said she found so little use for men under any circumstances. 

Catrin thought she took Phyl’s point, sometimes, for she didn’t miss Ellis.  Indeed, their separation was almost a relief, except that Catrin found she had lost her knack for living alone.  There was a time when she thought- hoped- that it might be Tom Buckley she found herself sharing a place with, but... that wasn’t to be.  And though she would never be anything but sorry for how things had fallen out, she had found a way to be contented again.    

And though Phyl often pulled faces behind their nosy landlady’s back, Catrin had never regretted asking if she wanted to share the new flat.  Sometimes Catrin just needed someone.  And she had never needed Phyl more than she did right then. 

Damp hair now hanging free, Phyl looked over at Catrin and clearly read something worrisome from her expression.  She crossed to her, eyes narrowing.  “Are you all right?” she asked.  It was a wonder to Catrin sometimes that she had once thought Phyl cold, and listened when she was told to keep her at a distance.  Phyl pressed a hand to Catrin's forehead, feeling for the fever she wouldn't find.  She brushed stray strands of hair away from Catrin's forehead- a touch that made Catrin shudder in a more pleasant way than the chill inside their shared flat did. 

“I’m all right,” Catrin said.  Phyl looked skeptical- which she had every right to, since Catrin _wasn’t_ entirely all right.  There just wasn’t anything physically wrong with her.  Between writing and shooting and writing something new, she had kept busy since Mr. Hilliard had talked her back to work, but they were in something of a lull now- and she hadn’t particularly enjoyed being alone with her thoughts even before the storm started.  And _since_ it started... 

She wasn’t sure she could explain it to Phyl.  She hardly understood it herself.  She lived with regular bombings- why did the flashes of lightning that she could occasionally make out around the gaps in the curtains trouble her so much?

As if on cue, there was another flash and Catrin, sat with her knees folded up in the armchair in the corner, startled anew. 

Phyl’s expression, already rather soft, softened further.  “Does it remind you of-” she cut herself off, as if she had just realized that if the weather hadn’t brought a certain event to mind, that question certainly would.

But Catrin nodded.  So much of the day Tom Buckley died was a blur, but Catrin didn’t think she could ever forget all that light before everything went black and then-

And then nothing was ever the same. 

“I shouldn’t-” she sucked in a breath, unable to finish.  She shouldn’t let herself get caught up in these things.  She shouldn’t let herself wallow in grief the way she had before Mr. Hilliard came.  She shouldn’t let herself start sinking again. 

Phyl gave her a tight but oh-so-gentle smile.  She pushed Catrin’s hair back once more and straightened up.  “Shall I make you some tea?” she asked.

Catrin might have let her go then- only there was another flash of lightning, and another crack of thunder, just as she moved away.  Catrin caught her hand and held tight. 

And Phyl stilled.  Without seeming to give it another thought, she perched on the arm of Catrin’s chair and wrapped her own arms around Catrin herself.  She rested her face on the top of Catrin’s head.  “It'll be all right,” she said.  “I’m here.”  

Catrin didn’t want to be comforted like a child.  She wasn’t sure, much of the time, exactly what she did want where Phyl was concerned- or what Phyl might want when she held her this way- but she did know that she wanted to be stronger than this.  And yet- and yet she couldn’t stop feeling what she was feeling.  She lifted a hand, gripping Phyl’s blouse, and it shook faintly. 

Phyl kissed the top of her head softly.  “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it?  Phyl was here now, but there was really no way to guarantee that she always would be.  If Catrin knew anything, she knew life wasn’t always that kind. 

There might not be time for her to figure what she wanted, for her to answer all the unanswered questions she had where Phyl was concerned.  Moving forward, carrying on- these were the only things to do in such uncertain times, and yet she felt paralyzed.  By this storm- and by all the things she didn’t yet understand. 

She was good with words, but in this she didn’t even know where to begin.  She joked: “You _were_ leaving.  To go make tea.”

She heard herself laugh wetly, and when Phyl laughed too her voice wasn’t entirely dry.  “Tea?  Who needs to tea?”

“I think you may have just said something sacrilegious.”

They both laughed again, and something about the storm- about the city and the war and the entire world- seemed... diminished.  There was still so much Catrin didn’t know- but suddenly she did know that she felt loved, in a way she hadn’t for a long time, and all too briefly even then.  Maybe, in all this uncertainty, that was enough to hold on to- for a little while longer, at least.

So for a while she just rested her head against Phyl’s shoulder, felt Phyl’s breath in her hair and let the rhythm of it drown out the rain.  Eventually she would have to draw away, let Phyl get on with that tea, return to her notes about their next possible picture and ask Phyl what she thought.  She was surely well enough to manage that much now.

But not just yet, she decided.  Not yet. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


End file.
